


our nights are more beautiful than our days

by zauberer_sirin



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Marriage of Convenience, POV Marcus, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Based on wouriqueen's prompt: "The coalition decides on a marriage between the leaders of Skaikru and Trikru to strengthen the bonds between their clans. Kane and Indra agree. Of course, since they’re already in love with each other. They just don’t know the feeling is mutual."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wouriqueen (MaggieBrown)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieBrown/gifts).



**i.**

He knows this marriage is a matter of convenience, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t take the ritual seriously. All those years in the Ark, he never thought of marrying. He definitely never thought of marrying for the greater good, or that his persona could be a bargaining chip in a war that seems doomed to start again - both Polis and the Skaikru decided permanent peace required something stronger than a political alliance.

They meant a stronger _bond_.

His people say it is logical, Indra’s people say it’s _wise_. Neither have much time to think of arguing. They are friends, which makes everything more uncomfortable, this political marriage.

The ritual requires they exchange gifts, but in private, something of significance from their people. Marcus realizes he doesn’t carry anything of personal value with him, he doesn’t carry anything at all.

As a gesture he tells Indra the names of all the people killed in the Culling, which he eventually memorized more out of self-pity than respect. Indra, shy like he suspects very few people know she can be, shows him a couple of bracelets tucked inside a piece of cloth. They are made of the particular kind of leather he has come to associate with the Grounders.

“The Commander gave them to me, she made them when she was a child,” Indra explains. She is decided to speak Marcus’ language when they are alone, which hardly seems fair to him, now that they are - _married_ , though the word tastes funny and hollow so far.

“The Commander?”

Indra nods, heavily.

Marcus knows why she is doing this, _subjecting_ herself to this shameful arrangement.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Marcus says. It’s the first time they have been able to speak alone since the official ceremony in Polis. “You shouldn’t have to go through this, not even for your people.”

“You agreed too,” she points out. “And you are my friend. It’s an honor.”

That shuts him up about her supposed “sacrifice” (her friends have died, just like his, why wouldn’t she risk as much as Marcus to achieve peace?) and they get ready for bed.

Marcus hesitates until he realizes Indra considers this as much a political marriage as he does. He sits on their cot awkwardly, taking too much time undressing, unlacing his boots in the dark, until she can hear Indra make a frustrated sound at his clumsiness. The house is new for her as well, but she seems to have found her way around it much faster than him.

Indra doesn’t seem to have any trouble with them sharing a bed, despite this. A warrior’s life, Marcus realizes. She must be used to sleeping in the rough with her brothers and sisters in arms, watching each other’s back, and sharing body warmth on cold nights. For a moment Marcus is envious of that sort of companionship - in the Ark alliances are frail and everything is cold, metallic, when you go to sleep. Part of him is really grateful for Indra’s company, he can’t remember the last time he’s slept in the same bed as someone else. Except that first night he is too nervous to sleep, anyway.

 

**ii.**

So far it feels like having a bodyguard more than a wife. She is always watching over her shoulder - and _his_ shoulder - and keeping close, but not like a wife, rather as someone with a job to do. He didn’t think about it, but Indra has caught on, as husband and wife they are more important than they ever were as individuals, they are the coalition’s hope and as such, they are in danger.

Days after they get married, when Marcus has barely had time to get used to sharing a house, and a Grounder one, with another person, Indra volunteers them for a mission to journey deep into the southern region, and strike a truce and an alliance with some of the smaller tribes living there.

She seems especially vigilant on their way there through woods and rivers, riding close behind Marcus and looking at every tree, every leaf on every tree, like a potential enemy waiting to jump them at any time. Marcus wishes she would relax - he knows she can, he spent a summer learning Grounder culture and politics from her, and he knows she can relax and joke and laugh and tease - but he guesses this is what a lifetime at war does to you. He was at war all his life too, in the Ark, but their was a different kind of warfare. He think he prefers the Grounders’ way.

“Why did you want us to go on this mission?” he asks her when they make a stop, trying to make the trip easier.

Indra looks around, making sure their bodyguards (actual bodyguards) are ready for anything.

“The language you speak sometimes,” she says.

“Spanish?”

She nods.

“The tribes from the south, what they speak sounds like your language. I thought they would be more open to trade.”

That’s shrew, betrays a sharp political instinct. Indra is known as a fierce warrior, not a thinker or a leader like the Commanders she has been serving.

“You are smart, it’s a pity they have you playing the lackey,” Marcus says, thinking he’s complimenting her.

Indra grabs his shoulder, digging her fingers enough to hurt.

“I am loyal and devoted,” she says. “But make no mistake, _husband_ , I am no lackey.”

He doesn’t even have the dignity to mumble an apology and for the rest of the trip Indra keeps an icy silence.

They arrive in the southern village that is to be their base of operations for a whole month, they arrive late and in a pitch black darkness.

They are too exhausted to eat and Indra is still sharp with him, still offended, blowing out the candles way before Marcus has time to undress properly.

 

**iii.**

He loves their time in the south.

The landscape is a green he has never seen before (one he’s read about in books he dismissed as fantasy). The sun seems to shine warmer, and the days are a bit longer. The people are suspicious of strangers, and don’t get Marcus wrong, they have shown they are capable of protecting what’s theirs, but they seem peaceful.

A kind of peaceful he hasn’t known on Earth so far.

They don’t agree to trade with the north, but they let Marcus and Indra stay to learn about their farming techniques, they way they treat animals’ skins, their medicine. He can speak his family’s language for the first time in years - it’s not the same dialect, but close enough.

“You should teach me,” Indra says. “In case I need it in the negotiations.”

“I have forgotten more than I know,” he tells her.

“Just a few words.”

“Like what?”

Suddenly Indra gets an expression like he has caught her doing something bad, and she looks away, and doesn’t ever bring up the issue again.

It’s a privilege but idleness does not suit them at all. He doesn’t remember having idle time since he was a child and talking to Indra she seems to be similarly at odd with all this freedom. 

One day he catches her drawing the hills surrounding the little village.

“May I?”

Indra lets him sit by her side and watch as she adds more details to her sketch. He didn’t know she knew how to draw. There are so many things they don’t know about each other (he guesses there are a lot of bad things she doesn’t know about him), and it’s ridiculous if he thinks about it, they are husband and wife, and they are friends, but they are also strangers.

“It’s beautiful,” Marcus says. “Reminds me of Lincoln’s drawings.”

“I taught him to draw,” Indra says, simply.

He wonders if this is what it feels like having a companion, a partner, even a wife. The silence. And the words that would hardly come in front of other people, but seem easy when they are together. He is only beginning to understand how well he loved Indra before, but those feelings have only seemed to deepened, ironically, since their fake marriage. Ironically it’s having getting married like this which will probably prevent him from ever telling her that.

That night, after she showed him the drawings, she takes more than usual to get into bed. Marcus listens to her breathing in the dark, different than all the times they have shared a bed. They sleep shoulder to shoulder, or back to back, soldiers’ arrangement.

 

**iv.**

The night before they have to leave to go back home Indra seems more fidgety than he has ever seen her. 

“Are you sad to be leaving?” Marcus asks once they are already in bed.

She takes a moment before replying and he is half-convinced she is not going to, at all.

“I am,” Indra admits.

He doesn’t ask why.

He is an idiot, but he is afraid her reasons are not the same as his.

 

**v.**

Maybe he has needed a bodyguard all along, Marcus thinks when they are ambushed on their way back home.

Except she got it all wrong; Marcus was never the target, she was. 

Luckily, for once in his worthless life, Marcus seems to get there faster.

“That arrow was meant for me,” Indra says, looking annoyed like he has somehow stolen something from her.

She is kneeling besides him on the ground, their assailant already dead. Marcus thinks she’s killed them, but he’s not sure of the sequence of events. He doesn’t remember falling from his horse at all. It’s kind of funny if he thinks about it; he never thought of marrying, in all those years of relative peace in the Ark, and now he is going to die a married man. He is going to die _because_ he is a married man. No, he realizes, remembering what he felt when he saw the archer hiding in one of the trees, when he suddenly knew where he was aiming. He is going to die because he has fallen in love with his own wife.

“Next time I’ll let you take the arrow,” he jokes, feeling a piercing pain with every sound of every letter.

“You foolish man,” Indra whispers through her teeth, in her language.

It’s good that marriages can agree on the important things, Marcus thinks before passing out.

 

+

 

“It’s going to leave a scar,” she tells him, tightening the bandage around his arm.

It’s a lot less painful than it looks, it’s been a few hours and he’s already out of danger, but Indra has this look of complete concentration as she tends to his wounds.

“You don’t have to do this,” he tells her. She is no lackey, he knows now. 

He can tell she has done this many times, patch up comrades wounded in action, and he wants to hear all of her stories.

“Sit still,” she orders in her usual sharp tone.

Marcus lifts his hand to her neck, brushing his thumb against an old scar, a patch of hard and pale skin right above Indra’s collarbone. She freezes and Marcus wonders if she has done this before, realizes how arrogant that sounds. He can’t remember ever doing this, he thinks as he closes his mouth over Indra’s. He means he can’t remember it ever feeling like this.

He fears she is not reciprocating, until she starts taking off her clothes, painfully slow. Marcus has seen her make all this gestures before, every night for the last couple of months they have been married, but not like this.

He kisses the outline of her ribcage, discovering more scars, invisible to the eye, under the tip of his tongue. Indra deserves soft things but he is afraid he doesn’t know how to do that.

“Husband,” she whispers, drawing a sharp breath and her whole body trembling, as he kisses her between her legs.

He smiles, presses a kiss against the inside of her thigh.

“Call me Marcus.”

She nods, holding his gaze a moment. She nods, running one hand across his hair, scraping her fingers against his cheek and his beard.

“Marcus. I’ve been waiting for you, _Marcus_ ,” she says, sounding sweeter than he thinks _husband_ could ever be. But who knows. Maybe one day. They have all the time in the word, they have every night to make this marriage a little less fake every time.

They don’t sleep shoulder to shoulder or back to back that night.


End file.
